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Crunchgear is circulated a report from “a trusted source” concerning the new Nova-powered smartphone Palm which will be launched Thursday at CES. The description of the new device is pretty much as expected, with the dreaded and heavily over-used term “iPhone-like” being mentioned by the source. The source says the smartphone is being made by HTC and has a large portrait touchscreen (larger then that found on the Treos) with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. In fact the description is much like the “iPhone Pro” concept art that has been making the rounds of late, except that rather then sliding out landscape-style as the dream iPhone’s keyboard does, this one is expected to slide out portrait style.

The source calls the Nova operating system “amazing” and says it will feature media functions along with standard PIM apps. I have to assume that Palm will throw every possible feature and the kitchen sink into this phone as it is clearly intended to showcase Nova as a worthy descendant of the Palm legacy, now a bit old fashioned and shopworn. Now is not the time for a G1 style incremental release, with many features pushed back to make sure the device itself was launched on schedule. If Palm’s new smartphone gets hit with the general disappointment that the G1 suffered at release, then I fear it will quickly go the way of the Foleo…in other words, nowhere fast.

However, if this device really does have an iPhone like user experience, coupled with a dynamic new OS, slide out keyboard and Palm’s rep in the enterprise community, this phone could replace the new crop of Nokia and HTC products as the business smartphone of choice. Personally I could live in a mobile world where Palm and WinMo take on RIM for the business users, leaving Apple to feast on the consumer market. I definitely have my fingers crossed for Thursday.